Tourism

Photo: Pentecost river crossing, Gibb River Road

Tourism is one of the Kimberley’s iconic industries, yet visitation statistics can be difficult to quantify due to the far-reaching nature of expenditure by visitors. We recommend that interpretation of visitation statistics be done in conjunction with other information sources such as Australian Bureau of Statistics, feedback from local operators, and information from local Visitor Centres.

According to Tourism WA, for the past 10 years over 50% of visitors to the region are domestic from within Australia, with the international market also continuously expanding. Top international markets to the region include Germany, United States of America and the United Kingdom. Among all domestic and international visitors to the region, more than 50% are drawn to the Kimberley for holiday or leisure. Tourism WA produced an Overnight Visitor Fact sheet for the Kimberley Region, which provided an in-depth look at visitation to Western Australia’s Regional Development Commission areas based on the last three calendar years (2015-2017). The chart below shows a Kimberley annual average (2015/16/17) overnight visitor breakdown numbers.

In Mid-2018, Singapore Airline’s regional off-shoot, SilkAir, launched the first of four trial services into Broome International Airport, making it the first international flight for the area in almost two decades. The SilkAir flight takes a total of four hours and has been contributing to the exposure the Kimberley region to the Asian market.

Photo: About 80 passengers travelled on the first of four trial flights between Singapore and Broome in May 2018. ABC Kimberley.

Other Key tourism metrics for 2017 are displayed below.

2017 Key Tourism Metrics

wdt_ID

Local Government Area

Visitors ('000)

Average spend per night ($)

Average stay (nights)

1

Broome International

34

63

11

2

Broome Domestic

242

231

6

3

Wyndham-East Kimberley International

12

56

10

4

Wyndham-East Kimberley Domestic

110

195

6

5

Derby-West Kimberley International

10

51

11

6

Derby-West Kimberley Domestic

93

108

6

7

Halls Creek International

8

51

7

8

Halls Creek Domestic

60

189

4

Source: Austrade, Tourism Research Australia (2018).
* 2017 data is based on a four year average from 2014 to 2017.